


Red Flag Means Run

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Series: The Pursuit of Complete Understanding [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is not human, Early in Canon, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Humor, The Voice of Night Vale, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 09:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21336025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: It takes Carlos a month and a half to realize that Night Vale is going easy on him.He’s been a little distracted by everything else about this impossible town. The sun doesn’t set at the right time, the ground is experiencing enormous, constant seismic shifts, there are houses that don’t exist and dragons that do, the radio station is radioactive almost to Chernobyl levels, the Sheriff’s Secret Police seem to suffer from social anxiety…The point is, Carlos has had a lot going on. That’s his excuse for why it takes him so long.
Relationships: Carlos & Cecil Palmer, Carlos/Night Vale
Series: The Pursuit of Complete Understanding [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562653
Comments: 17
Kudos: 245





	Red Flag Means Run

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure this is not a new concept but I’m re-starting the show from the beginning and was inspired to write this. So here we are.  
Thanks for reading and kudos/comments make my day if you like it :)

The first day Carlos is in Night Vale he misses Cecil’s show. His colleague Jessica, chosen for the project for her PhD in environmentally caused supernatural phenomena, listens to the whole thing.

“The guy doing the radio show? Cecil? He says he’s in love with you and your hair,” she informs him the moment he comes back from the City Hall meeting.

Carlos just stares at her. Jessica elaborates.

“There’s this dude on the radio who seems to know everything. Apparently your teeth look like rows of tombstones and your hair is, quote, ‘beautiful and perfect’.”

Carlos collapses onto the couch. He and his team have rented a house for the month and the furniture has already changed color.

That’s not the most important problem.

“He says he’s in love with me?”

“Yup.” Jessica gestures at the radio. A soothing male voice is warning them of the dangers of acknowledging the hierarchy of angels. “And your hair. He was very into your hair.”

“Jessica,” Carlos says, “was he reporting on me from the radio station while I was talking to people at the City Hall?”

“Yep.”

“How?”

She shrugs helplessly. “That’s above my paygrade, Carlos. Hell, this whole thing is above my paygrade.”

Carlos throws himself into setting up monitoring equipment. Cecil’s voice follows him and his team everywhere they go, though. The car radios turn themselves on and can’t be turned off.

“How does he know what we’re doing?” Aspen hisses, their binoculars trained on the house behind the elementary school that doesn’t exist. “How the hell is he doing this?’

Carlos doesn’t have any answers to give them. In the background, Cecil continues to narrate Carlos’ every move.

It takes Carlos a month and a half to realize that Night Vale is going easy on him.

He’s been a little distracted by everything else about this impossible town. The sun doesn’t set at the right time, the ground is experiencing enormous, constant seismic shifts, there are houses that don’t exist and dragons that do, the radio station is radioactive almost to Chernobyl levels, the Sheriff’s Secret Police seem to suffer from social anxiety…

The point is, Carlos has had a lot going on. That’s his excuse for why it takes him so long to catch on. 

His geologist gets taken by the Sheriff’s Secret Police for reeducation after she tries to convince someone mountains exist. 

His lab assistant gets eaten after she forgets to mark her door with eel blood the night of the Butcher’s Church potluck. Carlos is appalled and saddened, obviously, but he’s also confused because he hadn’t remembered to add the stripe of eel blood to the liquids already smeared on his door (lamb blood, imaginary corn concentrate, deionized salt water, something black and slimy that Old Woman Josie had given to him in a dark glass vial with no explanation).

Carlos starts putting it together as he drafts his condolence letter to his assistant’s family.

Logically, Carlos should have died already. Several times. 

He, too, has tried to convince people of the existence of mountains; he’s missed rituals to ward off spirits and the Neighborhood Watch and the eldritch abomination the house next to his lab keeps as a pet. He’s forgotten when days have been cancelled and moved; he’s poked random objects that have red flags sticking out of them; he’s even tried to speak to angels and hooded figures.

But he’s still alive. 

Carlos tries to put his continued and unlikely existence aside. The books have stopped working and he has more pressing concerns than wondering why he’s still alive.

Old Woman Josie is the first one to tell him Cecil’s title.

Carlos stops by to ask about the Ericas— vaguely and indirectly, of course, but he can’t help asking. He’s a scientist. His curiosity is his defining characteristic.

“Have you talked to Cecil yet?” Josie asks. She hands him a glass of what Carlos hopes is lemonade.

“Yeah. I went to the station and told him to evacuate everybody. My Geiger counter was practically exploding.”

Josie laughs. “That didn’t work, did it?”

“Nope.” Carlos takes a large sip of lemonade. It tastes identical to the lemonade his abuela used to make. “He told me I was cute.”

“Mm.” 

Carlos and Josie sit in companionable silence. One of the angels (whose existence Carlos is definitely not acknowledging) drifts out the door.

“Be careful, Erica!” Josie calls. Erica waves.

“Why am I still alive, Josie?” Carlos asks.

She contemplates him. “I think you have an idea.”

He stares into his lemonade. It swirls and turns bright blue.

“It’s Cecil, isn’t it? He’s protecting me somehow.”

Josie smiles. “The Voice of Night Vale cares for you, Carlos. I would not take that lightly.”

“I’ve barely even talked to the guy.”

Josie levels him with a stare that makes Carlos feel five years old again.

“Cecil Palmer is the Voice of Night Vale. That may mean more than you think.”

Carlos lies awake late that night, watching the mysterious lights overhead cast patterns across his ceiling and listening to Cecil.

“I hope you have a favorite song to lull you to sleep tonight, listeners,” Cecil intones. “A particular favorite of mine at the moment is  _ The March of the Ritually Cannibalistic Butterflies _ . Remember that time does not matter and existence is fleeting. Music is the only way we have to connect to something larger.”

Cecil’s voice becomes cheerful. “Stay tuned next for the sounds of cars passing over a rusting bridge.”

Carlos mouths Cecil’s sign off with him.

“Good night, Night Vale. Good night.”

Carlos is finally drifting off to sleep when James bursts into his room and says, “Jessica just called. She’s fending off the hooded figure that lurks under the playground slide with a flare gun.”

Carlos sighs and rolls out of bed. He doesn’t even bother getting undressed anymore because things like this happen at least weekly. 

“Get the flamethrower and the t-shirt cannon.”

Carlos recruits another lab assistant to replace the one that got eaten. Her name is Alexis and she double majored in math and chemistry.

He chooses her because she described herself as “CPR certified”, “an endurance runner”, and “proficient in knife throwing and hand-to-hand combat”. 

She seems meant for Night Vale.

Cecil speaks very highly of Alexis after she wins Night Vale’s annual Most Likely to Survive Ultimate Fighting Championship.

“I grew up in Russia,” she explains.

Night Vale likes Alexis as much as Cecil does.

Carlos is no longer sure which caused which.

Cecil’s narration of events he shouldn’t even know about becomes familiar and almost soothing. At least one of the team is always listening for things they should avoid at all costs. Listening becomes less of a task and more of a habit the longer Carlos stays in Night Vale.

Carlos’ team of scientists learn quickly that being with Carlos is the best way to stay safe. The roads don’t bend and twist like Mobius strips when Carlos is driving, the holes in reality only let through moderately dangerous creatures, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police are much more friendly. 

They have to put up with random passerby asking how Carlos gets his hair so perfect and if they can touch it, but Alexis calculates that being around Carlos reduces the chance of injury or death by 73%, so it’s a worthy sacrifice.

All in all, Carlos is glad Cecil seems to have taken a liking to him. Even if it’s weird and more than a little creepy, it’s useful and it doesn’t seem to be harming anyone.

Then Carlos gets a haircut.

Telly the Barber disappears after Cecil gives an uncannily accurate description of him.

“My hair isn’t that bad, is it?” Carlos asks Aspen.

They glance up from their microscope. “Nah. Well, it’s not an improvement, but it’s not, like, overtly violence-inducing.”

Carlos sighs. “So it doesn’t justify murdering the barber?”

Aspen blinks. “I mean, I don’t think so. Looks like Night Vale might think otherwise.”

“You mean Cecil might think otherwise.”

Aspen returns to looking at their slide. Even from the doorway Carlos can see the thing in the slide moving. “No, I mean Night Vale.”

Carlos gets to his room before Aspen’s words sink in. He sprints back.

“What do you mean?” Carlos demands. 

Night Vale has done wonders for his running abilities. He’s not even out of breath.

They don’t look up. “Night Vale and Cecil, they’re pretty much the same thing, aren’t they? Like, that’s why Cecil always knows everything and people do what he wants.”

Carlos opens his mouth, closes it again, and drives to Old Woman Josie’s house.

“Is Cecil Night Vale?” Carlos asks the moment Josie opens her door.

She smiles and closes the door in his face.

Carlos drives straight out into the sand wastes and, after checking for any helicopters with murals featuring birds of prey, yells wordlessly at the sky.

“You all right, Mr. Scientist Carlos?” a man in a balaclava asks, sticking his head out from behind a sand dune.

“Perfectly fine, thank you Max,” Carlos says evenly.

“All right, just checking. Have a good night.”

Max returns to hiding.

Carlos returns to screaming.

His car radio clicks on. 

“Listeners, Carlos appears to be in considerable distress,” Cecil announces.

Carlos buries his head in his hands.

A Weird Scout stops Carlos from crossing a street and therefore stops Carlos from being eaten by something that looks like a car but is definitely not.

“Thanks, Cecil,” Carlos says wearily.

The Weird Scout beams. His gap-toothed grin would be cute if not for his second set of teeth. 

“I’m not Cecil, Mr. Scientist Carlos. Not really. But he heard you.”

Carlos thanks the Weird Scout and crosses the street.

James is giving Carlos a weird look.

“What?” Carlos snaps.

James just shakes his head, a smile playing about his lips.

That night Cecil pauses before telling his listeners what to stay tuned next for.

“You’re welcome, Carlos,” Cecil says softly.

Carlos sleeps well that night.

At least, he sleeps well until the sound of gunshots and James’ screaming wake him up.

“Acid-spitting lizards!” James yells. “Bullet-proof acid-spitting lizards!”

Carlos cocks the hammers back on the shotgun he keeps on his nightstand— modified to shoot salt pellets blessed by the Ericas-- and runs towards the screaming and hissing.


End file.
